The probe continued climbing. It had now passed above Purgatory Planet's cloud tops and through an extremely thin layer of atmosphere, essentially entering the vacuum of space. The full appearance of Purgatory Planet was almost completely visible in the transmitted footage, and its form was astonishing.
It was an almost perfectly smooth sphere, resembling a snowball. Not a single line or crease could be seen on its surface. Wrapped entirely in cloud tops, the planet looked like one seamless whole. Because the clouds themselves emitted light, the planet shone brilliantly in the pitch-black depths of space, like a luminous pearl.
Just looking at this scene, who could have imagined what an ugly world lay beneath those thick clouds?
The probe recorded a panoramic image of Purgatory Planet, then continued flying toward outer space and began searching for signs of a star. But after crossing some spatial boundary, the signal it transmitted suddenly cut off.
"We lost the probe." The Data Terminal shut off the tracking display, which had turned into static. "It probably came into contact with the boundary of space. If the device survived, it should return from the void later."
"There really isn't a star," Hao Ren muttered. "This planet is the only celestial body in the spatial fragments."
Heiserana couldn't understand how a perfectly ordinary operation to hunt down a witch had suddenly developed in such a bewildering direction. She scratched her hair and looked at Hao Ren in confusion. "What are you studying...? What does it matter if there's no star?"
"On Earth, all the energy in the ecosystem comes from the sun—including the planet's temperature. The source of everything is sunlight." Hao Ren pointed at the underside of the faintly glowing cloud tops directly above them. "Without starlight, a planet would become cold, dead, and